One World – Episode 8: Just Annihilate Them

A pretty interesting episode tonight. Not an amazing one, but one where two players made huge mistakes (Troy and Chelsea), and where Kim played like the very best players this game has seen.

At first, I was pretty confused by tonight’s vote. Not by the fact that Mike was sent packing. No, just by who voted for whom and why. It didn’t completely match the edit.

Troyzan and Jay being adamant voting against a woman (most likely Christina) and ending up voting for Mike.

Christina and Alicia voting together (!?) against Tarzan.

Leif not being out of the loop and actually voting against Mike.

That really confused me for a moment. After giving it a few thoughts, I think that Kim masterminded all of that even more beautifully than shown. Not only she managed to have Troy and Jay voting how she wanted (i.e. against both the men and Salani), but she also managed to not make them suspicious by having Christina and Alicia throw some votes away, which is pretty much killing two birds with the same stone. This way, Jay and Troy don’t think that Christina and Alicia are with Kim, Sabrina and Chelsea (and Kat), but also, in the event Mike had a hidden immunity idol and played it, they wouldn’t get screwed by it.

One mystery remain though: Leif voted for the right person tonight…

Tikiano

– Alicia Rosa: Did we hear her speak this week? Maybe not. Wow that was restful. If they could do that until she’s voted out, that’d be great. One interesting thing about her though is the fact that she voted with Christina. I’d really like to know what went on that was not shown, for both of them to vote together. I guess a lot of persuading from Kim and/or Sabrina went on.

– Chelsea Meissner: I’ve been back and forth with my opinion of Chelsea’s game play, but this week she proved that she’s definitely not the brains of the alliance. Telling Jay that they’re going to vote Mike out in front of Christina and Alicia was a dumb dumb move. There were no better way to make Jay suspicious. Also, I’m surprised to learn that she has fake boobs. I’m not a fake boobs specialist, definitely not a fake boob lover, but she has no reason at all to be mad at her surgeon at all, Tarzan is indeed crazy.

– Christina Cha: Not much about Christina this week, except for a few instances where we saw people unhappy with her again (during the challenge for example). I keep on wondering if that’s relevant or not.

– Greg “Tarzan” Smith: Tarzan is hilarious to watch. He’s the ultimate Survivor troll. I don’t think I even need to explain why. If you’ve watched this season, you know. What surprises me is that no more people are talking about taking him to the end. His behavior would guarantee him a spot in the final three most seasons, but not this one. Strange. Maybe he’s really as unbearable to live with on a deserted island as he’s hilarious to watch living with people on a deserted island.

– Jay Byars: What happened Jay? You were doing so great. Wanting to vote a woman out, then getting suspicious that you were being played, and then still being completely played… I really wish this episode had been much longer, I have the feeling that we missed a few important conversations. Also Jay’s edit has been pretty interesting. He started in the bad alliance, and he seemed to be some sort of male Kat. He turned out to be intelligent, succeeded in leaving the “muscle alliance” to join the dominant alliances without causing any trouble. He could go far if he can survive the upcoming attack from the women.

– Kat Edorsson: Almost no Kat this week. I mean, she told us, that she couldn’t do the immunity challenge puzzle. Thanks for telling us Kat, I don’t think we would have figured it out otherwise.

– Kim Spradlin: Perfect game play (and perfect edit) for Kim this week. Survivor fans always bitch that production (i.e. Jeff Probst) hate female winners and always give them poor editing (case in point, Sophie Clarke who played a very subtle but brilliant game last season, and didn’t exactly receive a very interesting edit), but Kim is getting one of the best edits that any Survivor contestant has ever received. She’s being shown as a flawless mastermind (and one that doesn’t even appear as a “villain”). This week she managed to have another man out without alienating (yet) the two men in her Salani alliance. There is just one thing that bothers me with her decision to go women vs men instead of Salani vs Manano. At this point of the game, it seems a bit unnecessary. Salani has the majority against Manano, why not just go with Salani. She can get rid her Troy, Mike and Jay once all of Manano is gone. I guess she didn’t do that because she’s afraid some of these men could go on an immunity streak that’d screw up her plans. That or the fact that she doesn’t want to go to the finals with Chelsea and Sabrina but with two weaker players (two among Kat, Christina and Alicia). Last week, I said it was Troyzan’s game to lose. I’m afraid he lost it this week, and now it’s definitely Kim’s game to lose.

– Leif Manson: Did he do or say anything worth mentioning this week?

– Michael Jefferson voted out: Since the beginning I kinda knew he was going to get voted out around this point of the game. What surprises me is that he as not exactly voted out for the reasons I suspected (the usual “beast in challenges that need to get voted out”) but as simply a collateral damage of another players larger plan. Apart from that, not much. Past his stealing of the women’s stuff out of the truck on the first day, he was pretty useless and uninteresting.

– Sabrina Thompson: She’s the one we see the least out of the three leading women. I wonder why. However, she’s also the one who’s shown under the most positive light. I wonder if that means something.

– Troy “Troyzan” Robertson: I can’t believe Troyzan got played the way he was. After all the praise I had for him and the fact that he too is a huge Survivor fan, I can’t believe how he got so easily fooled by Kim. She played on his dislike of Mike, and he completely fell for it. If he ever was suspicious about the fact that Mike wouldn’t and couldn’t gun for him, he was forgotten on the floor of the editing room Now, he’s in trouble. Now, he’ll need to make a very big move himself to keep chances to win. We’ll see.

Next Time on Survivor:

Will the men be capable of saving themselves and play the women?

No idea at this point.

Who’s next to go?

Last week I wrote that Leif was next to go, but he could be this week for sure. Unless the men manage to vote a woman out.

Who’s gonna win?

Kim seems like a lock. Sabrina is not too far behind. Jay could be an underdog winner. Troyzan and Chelsea lost a lot of points this week.